Back to Basics: Exploring some of Southeastern Virginia's Last Wild Places

Some of the photos posted on this map are from 2017, which was the last time I had visited this location. However, on June 28, 2022, I came back to take photos and log my wildlife/plant finds. BBNWR and False Cape are exactly as I remembered, with abundant wildlife, unique ecosystems, and beautiful vistas that are included here. Please take the time to "see" the sights here...or better yet, go and visit! I used Google MyMaps for this project, and it was pretty straightforward, even for a beginner like me. The satellite imagery is more or less updated, so finding specific points on the map to match my photos was easy enough. The layers feature allows me to categorize my photos, which I appreciated because it keeps my map from looking like a jumbled mess of dots. The only thing I don't like is that I can't add videos. BBNWR and False Cape are amazing not just for the aesthetics, but also for the sounds. Specifically, there is a species of cicada here,  Magicicada tredec

When you think of the word "biodiversity," what do you envision? A lush tropical rainforest? A coral reef teeming with colorful fish? The African savannah with its throngs of wildebeest, hyenas, lions, and cheetahs? Would you consider the sun-baked deserts as being biodiverse? What about the temperate secondary-growth forests of the East Coast of the United States? While it's easy to think of biodiversity in terms of megafauna and David Attenborough documentaries, there is life nearly everywhere on this planet, and the diversity of that life depends on the location, resources, and effects of human activity. So, what is biodiversity? Biodiversity seems like a pretty straightforward concept, just based on the word itself. Bio means life, while diversity means variety. So, for me, the definition of biodiversity would subsequently be “variety of life.” However, this "variety" is subjective. The rainforest obviously has more species than say, the deserts of Utah. Nev

Ever since I was a child, I disliked Virginia Beach. For a young tomboy that yearned to explore new worlds, Virginia Beach was a bustling, confusing metropolis with a crowded strip of sand lined with high-rise hotels that blotted out the sun and stars. The Outer Banks were my jam; endless dunes with loads of interesting plants, large stretches of isolated beaches, vast swaths of protected wetlands...now this was a place for a burgeoning wildlife enthusiast to cut her teeth! But alas, North Carolina was more than five hours away from where I grew up, so the go-to family vacation spot was always the inevitably boring, crowded, stifling Virginia Beach. However, unbeknownst to me, just south of the din, a paradise lay mostly undisturbed by the beach crowds. Just past the beachfront parking lot at Little Island Park, Virginia, there is a small gate with a guard. For just $5, visitors can escape from the cramped beaches and enter Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge (BBNWR). The Refuge is comp